War of the Ring: The Card Game
313 questions players ask about War of the Ring: The Card Game. Pick one for the answer. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-11-06.
Setup and ComponentsExpansion
- Are corruption and combat tokens limited in supply?
- What do the path shield and skull tokens do?
- Is starting each player with 6 cards a recognized quick-start setup?
- How many promo cards go into each deck in a two-player game?
- Do the base game promo cards go into the Trilogy decks, and does an uneven card count matter?
- Which promo cards should be used in the short two-player scenarios (Fellowship, Two Towers, Return of the King)?
- Is there a fixed deck size, and does it change with promos or Fire and Swords cards?
- Can teammates talk to each other about the cards they hold?
- Are Skirmish cards used when playing solo against the bot?
The Play Area and Reserve
- Is there a limit to how many cards you can put in your reserve area?
- Can a character or army played to reserve move to a path or battleground in the same round?
- Can I move a character from reserve if I played an item onto it this round?
- Can a character or army in reserve still use its ability on the turn it was played?
- Are cards played into reserve face up or face down?
- What counts as a card being in play?
The Game Round
Location Step and Locations
- Does activating a higher-numbered path shorten the game and change who goes first?
- What happens on path 9 if a card tries to activate a higher path or another path of the same number?
- Can Aragorn's or Gandalf's path ability be used on the last path of the scenario?
- Can more than one battleground be active at once, and can an active battleground be activated again?
- When a card activates a new path while one is already active, what happens to the current path?
- Can players look through the path and battleground decks during the game?
- Can an army granted by a battleground effect be played to a different battleground?
- When a card lets you activate a path, do you choose it or is it random?
- Can a battleground be replaced by another battleground in the same round?
Action Step
- What happens if I have more cards than my carryover limit when everyone else passes?
- Can I pass with more cards than my carryover limit if I have fewer than the opponent?
- Is it legal to hold a large hand, such as 12 cards, early in the game?
- When does the Action step end if players keep passing?
- Can a Free Peoples player pass while holding three cards with a carryover limit of two?
- If I pass with more cards than my carryover limit, must I cycle the extras down to the limit?
- In team play, does the pass comparison look only at the other team's hands?
- Can a card already in hand pay the cycle cost when I play a card with a draw effect, or can I keep a drawn card instead of cycling it?
- Can a player use a 'use an action' ability of a card in play that another player controls?
Playing Cards
- Does playing an item onto a character stop it from moving?
- Does an item's faction let its wielder go to battlegrounds of that faction?
- Can a character cycled mid-game appear on a path again later?
- Do Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White count as the same card for the one-play-per-round rule?
- Can you play two copies of the same army card in one round?
- Can I play the last card in my hand, and do I cycle again for extra cards a card tells me to play?
- Do 'when played or moved to a path or battleground' effects (like Shelob's) trigger when the card goes to reserve?
- Can I cycle the Dwarven Axe to pay for playing Gimli and then take the axe back into my hand?
- If a cycled Bow of the Galadhrim pays for Legolas, can Legolas take it back?
Other Actions and Game Procedures
- What does it mean to cycle a card?
- Can eliminated cards ever return to play?
- Does Remove let you eliminate a card from your hand?
- Can you pay a voluntary cost such as eliminating a card if you cannot gain the benefit?
- Does a forsaken card count as eliminated for its own text?
- Can I take the Cycle action with no cards in hand in order to forsake a card?
- Does Winnow eliminate two cards from my hand?
- Can I winnow Bilbo or Frodo, and what happens to them?
- When I must forsake and my draw deck is empty, must I eliminate from hand or reserve?
- When is the cycle pile shuffled back into the draw deck?
Combat and Scoring
- Can you win the Two Towers or Return of the King scenario by reaching a 10-point lead early?
- Can the Shadow add corruption tokens to its scoring area before it has won any path?
- What does remove a corruption take away: a black token from the scoring area or a red skull from a path?
- Does corruption added by a card go straight into the Shadow scoring area?
- Can the Shadow gain or lose corruption from a battleground?
- When is the game over, and can it end before nine rounds?
- Is battleground combat still resolved in the round where the last path is decided?
- Can the Free Peoples score several paths of the same number?
- If There Is Another Way replaces the active path, who scores the path that was replaced?
Faction CardsExpansion
- Can a Lidless Eye move to a battleground that has no relevant attack or defense symbols?
- After The Ringwraiths Are Abroad, do I still cycle a card to play the Nazgul it draws?
- If Strider's action activates a path, what happens to Strider?
- Can Gandalf the Grey's path ability be used more than once in the same round?
- Can Prince Imrahil's cycle ability be used to forsake from the top of the draw deck to thin it?
- If I forsake or cycle to search for Knights of Dol Amroth and it is forsaken, do I still get a card?
- If no cards are left to draw, do I still cycle after a 'draw 1, then cycle 1' effect such as Galadriel or Rivendell?
- Can the Palantir of Orthanc be used when the draw deck has only 2 cards and the cycle pile is empty?
Scenarios and Duels
- In a two-player game, do you combine the Free Peoples and Shadow decks or keep them separate?
- Do scenario rules fall back to the Trilogy rules when a scenario does not mention a rule?
- Do the Two-Player Duel and Trilogy scenarios activate paths and battlegrounds differently?
- What does 'scenario max' mean on the flowchart?
- Can Sword and Shield paths be mixed into the base scenarios?
- How do two players play scenarios that use two hands per player?
- Do you have to play two games in the Two Towers and Return of the King scenarios?
- In the two-player Trilogy scenario, does each of the four decks get a Ring token?
- Is corruption still used in the Two-Player Duel?
War of the Ring: The Card Game – Against the ShadowExpansion
- Does Against the Shadow add cards or battlegrounds usable in the 2-player or Duel games?
- Does the Shadow bot ever pass in Against the Shadow solo play?
- In the Epic Duel, when is the Victory Check step performed?
- In the Duel, will the bot move cards onto a path where it can only reach a draw?
- In the Epic Duel at standard difficulty, how many fewer cards does the Shadow bot draw?
- Can the Fellowship of the Ring scenario be played solo?
- In solo play, is activating Dale useful for the bot when Erebor is also activated by Allies of Sauron?
- If a bot event says 'if not possible' and the bot cannot usefully activate a battleground, does it play or cycle the event?
War of the Ring: The Card Game – Fire and SwordsExpansion
- Can Fire and Swords be played in a competitive one-versus-one game without Against the Shadow?
- Can you play three-player co-op against the AI deck?
- Which paths can Disguised as Orcs activate on path 8A or 8B?
- How many cards does each player draw in setup for the two-player War in the North scenario with Trilogy rules?
- Does an active skirmish stop Mouth of Sauron or Lidless Eye from being played or moved to a path?
- On the Black Gate, does the Hobbit player's extra 2 add to the automatic 1 or make 2 in total?
- On the Fire and Swords solo Saruman card, do all three options require Saruman in the eliminated pile?
- Can Eowyn's effect that takes a hobbit into hand be used by the Hobbit player in future scenarios?